This disclosure relates generally to a community and more particularly to establishing and maintaining information needed to manage a community.
Generally, a community is a group of people who typically share a common interest. With the advent of the Internet and e-commerce, many companies are forming communities through intranets and extranets, for employees, suppliers, partners and clients. The communities make it easier and less expensive for the employees, suppliers, partners and clients to work together. In the context of computer services, these people are known as computer users or simply users. Information on each of the users in the communities is stored in a broad range of directories and databases. The information may comprise items such as the user""s name, location, telephone number, organization, login identification, password, etc. Other information may comprise the user""s access privileges to resources such as applications and content. The directories and databases may also store information on the physical devices (e.g., personal computers, servers, printers, routers, communication servers, etc.) in the networks that support the communities. Additional information may comprise the services (e.g., operating systems, applications, shared-file systems, print queues, etc.) available to each of the physical devices.
An administration tool typically manages all of the information associated with the community. A problem facing most administration tools is that the directories or databases that store the information can have structures that vary significantly from each other. Most commercially available administration tools do not have the capability to manage information stored in a broad range of directories and databases. Consequently, administrators of communities that store information in different directories and databases often have to use more than one administration tool to manage the information because a single tool is unable to locate, identify and characterize information that varies in structure and content. For example, suppose that an organization stores customer information in a directory such as a lightweight directory access protocol (LDAP) directory and information on software that the organization licenses in a database; an administrator would have to use more than one administration tool to manage both communities because the information varies in structure and content. Therefore, there is a need for an approach that can enable an administration tool to manage different communities whose information resides in separate and differently structured directories and databases.
Another problem with having community information stored in a broad range of directories and databases is that it is difficult for currently available administration tools to establish information to be managed from the directories and databases. Generally, data stored in directories and databases include a wide variety of information. Some of the data (e.g., name, address, etc.) are managed by a user, while some data (e.g., user and resource characteristics) are managed by an administrator. Typically, there is a great deal of other data that are often automatically associated with a user that do not have to be managed by an administrator. Other data that do not have to be managed by an administrator include unused or automatically updated data fields in the directories and databases. In order to manage a community, it is desirable to carve out a subset of the directory or database data to be managed and to explicitly ignore the rest. Also, as directories and databases change in structure, it is desirable to discover those changes and to decide whether or not to manage any new data elements. Therefore, there is a need for an approach that can enable an administration tool to establish information to be managed from the directories and databases, which includes defining information that is to be managed and information that is not to be managed and the discovering of new information to manage.
In one embodiment of this disclosure, there is a method, system and computer readable medium that stores instructions for instructing a computer system to establish information needed to manage a community. In this embodiment, at least one data repository containing data related to the community is identified. The structure of the data within the at least one data repository is discovered. Data objects and attributes within the objects are selected from the discovered structure for managing. Access permissions for managing the selected attributes are defined.
In a second embodiment of this disclosure, there is a system, method and computer readable medium that stores instructions for instructing a computer system to enable an administrator to establish information needed to manage a community. In this embodiment, at least one data repository containing data related to the community is identified. The structure of the data within the at least one data repository is discovered. The administrator is prompted to select data objects and attributes within the objects from the discovered structure and to define access permissions for managing the selected attributes.
In another embodiment, there is a tool for establishing information needed to manage a community. The tool comprises a data repository identification component that identifies at least one data repository containing data related to the community. A data structure discovery component discovers the structure of the data within the at least one data repository. A data selection component selects data objects and attributes within the objects according to the structure discovered by the data structure discovery component. An access permissions component defines access permissions for managing the attributes selected by the data selection component.
In still another embodiment, there is a system for establishing information needed to manage a community. This system comprises at least one data repository containing a plurality of community information. A tool establishes information in the at least one data repository to manage the community. The tool comprises a data repository identification component that identifies the least one data repository containing data related to the community. A data structure discovery component discovers the structure of the data within the at least one data repository A data selection component selects data objects and attributes within the objects according to the structure discovered by the data structure discovery component. An access permissions component defines access permissions for the managing attributes selected by the data selection component. A computing unit is configured to serve the tool.